50 Cent Iced Coffee and the Country Pop "Silent" Treatment From Hell.

Today was a great day. I got to discover and experience the 50 cent iced coffee in the book store. It was FANTASTIC. If your school doesn't have 50 cent iced coffee in the book store, I am truly sorry that you're missing out. Hopefully your school has something else really awesome and exciting to brag about. If  not, I've walked myself into an awkward corner and I apologize. Anyway, I made this discovery during my evening class. That means I drank said 50 cent iced coffee roughly around 6 or 6:30 pm. Now, I was the kid you probably knew growing up whose mother didn't let them drink mountain dew. I was a pretty active child anyway, and any extra energy would have thrown me into cardiac arrest. That on top of the fact that I gave up soda in December and have grown less and less tolerant of caffeine has resulted in my being jittery and completely EXCITED about everything at 11:30 pm. Good one iced coffee. Good one.

This energy has helped me finish several assignments early as well as produce a few little gems of artwork. For some reason tonight's muse is Ron Swanson. Ive drawn 3 Ron Swanson pictures in the last hour or so. Some would say I'm on a roll, I say it's a bit excessive. Either way I hope this energy passes soon. I don't want my sleep completely jacked up over this coffee; that would cause a latte problems (hey-oh!). Just a little coffee pun humor for you.

Anyway, here's one of my pictures from this evening. 

In other news, it's been fairly quiet on the room mate front. Well, other than the silent wrath of Room mate C. She's very upset with me and subsequently has chosen to NOT talk to me. It's been such a sweet relief! Honestly, girl tends to overreact. We once had a whole suite come to Jesus meeting (we have a lot of those here) and she ran away crying right in the middle of it. I mean, I would understand if everyone was ganging up on her threatening murder, but everyone was yelling at ME at the time. I think she's been calling that Gender Box Anonymous hotline too much honestly. Note: Gender Box Anonymous is a totally not imaginary hotline that people call to help them come to terms with, and hone their gender box capabilities. And by totally not imaginary I mean I just made it up right now. Room mate C seems to always be on the phone but it's never with her parents or her boyfriend. The totally nonfictional Gender Box Anonymous hotline is the ONLY possible explanation. They've been teaching her how to cook, sew, and cry endlessly. I blame Gender Box Anonymous for all of this.

Anyway, her silent treatment "punishment" has given me loads more time to work on my more important and relevant daily routines. Like sleeping, relaxing, doing homework, or doing my dishes without her complaining to me about a problem she created for herself. It's also amplified how annoying I think she is. See, I hear her voice a lot less, but when I do hear it I remember what was so irritating in the first place. This weekend Room mate C and Room mate D discovered that they just love country pop, and it was time they bonded over their mutual poor choice in music preferences. They stood in the kitchen together and sang a nice little diddy by Keith Urban. They sang it over, and over, and over again until I had to get the HELL outta Dodge. COME ON people, he's from New Zealand and he looks like Prince Charming from Shrek! WHAT is he doing singing ANY form of country music? Now, I know I'm being a little childish. And I'll admit I know very little about New Zealand. Everything I learned about New Zealand comes from Flight of the Concords, so I know my education in that area is slightly lacking. But that doesn't make his resemblance to Prince Charming from Shrek any less real. And that resemblance alone means he shouldn't be singing anything in the country music realm. I even made a little visual for you all to get a better idea of what I'm talking about.

Add some facial hair to Prince Charming and you got yourself a Country Pop "artist"

This man looks like he's never been hit in the face, and to me that means he has no business singing country music. Period. Sure, he has the history of alcohol abuse, but it just doesn't count in my eyes. Leave the genre to people who know how to treat it right Keith, and just go ahead and do pop music instead.

At the end of the day, I wish I'd known my room mates were so fond of country pop before I agreed to live with them. That alone would have raised enough red flags to convince me that this was not the suite to live in. But we persevere and grow and we learn that next time we live with strangers to NOT chose the room across from the kitchen where everyone gathers to cry and sing Keith Urban garbage.

Shrek Taught Me To Love Myself, Good One Shrek!

It may surprise you to know that I think about things outside of my current living situation, but I do. Shocking, I know! I can hear all of you gasping as you Macaulay Culkin your faces and wonder, WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO THINK ABOUT?! But every once in a while I have something genius to say outside of room mates, TV shows, and my ever growing awesomeness. Today, it's about how ever growingly awesome we ALL are. And no, that's NOT the same thing as me being awesome because ME is a unit in WE so there!

I was in bed trying to sleep last night when this thought came to me that really shouldn't have seemed as brilliant as it did. I thought to myself, The more time you spend worrying about what others think of you, the less time you have available to devote to worrying about what YOU think of you.  Well sleepy me was right, and she was looking extra beautiful and intelligent. See I've worked really hard to get to a point in my life where worrying about others isn't as much of an issue. If a stranger thinks I look bad, or do something stupid, it doesn't matter. Furthermore, If a friend thinks something negative for the most part I'm good with it. I've come to a point in my life where I don't worry about others opinions of me, and it's liberating.

Here's what I have to say to you. At the end of it all you have to be able to live with who you are and who you become. You and no one else! And not to go all "Ogre's are like onions" on you all, but it's true. We have layers, even us non-ogre types (though I can be an ogre in the morning). So what's the point in defining yourself over that top layer, fourth layer, or whichever layer you are currently worried about? If there's a layer that's been bothering you then you can work on it, but remember you got all those other awesome layers that are doing just fine! Your "problem" layers shouldn't define  you when all those other layers make you up as well. And if you're the one putting all the work into yourself and your problem layers, why should you care if a friend or random stranger thinks you aren't good enough? Can you even see all those great layers you got, or have you convinced yourself they don't exist? I think the secret we've been keeping from ourselves is that we ARE good enough. We can grown and change with time but at the end of the day we are good enough and we are awesome little onions... or ogres... or parfaits.

Another little secret we've been keeping from ourselves is that more often than not, people aren't really judging us. We are judging ourselves, while everyone else is too busy judging themselves to worry if we suck or not. 

People don't really tell us that we are good enough very often do they. I mean in a world like ours that is so keen on all the children getting trophies just for coming out and picking their noses on the bench, why aren't we so keen on reminding ourselves we're good enough? Is it that they're adorable little kids, and we are prone to protecting and nurturing their young bright needs? Is it that we think children's self esteem is important but adult self-esteem is silly? Have we simply abandoned ourselves in an attempt to save the young. Even airlines will tell you to put your mask on before assisting the child next to you, because if you can't breath how can you expect to help him swim ashore? When you feel good about yourself, you are more equipped to help the children in your life feel good about themselves. Model your self love, and they will follow in your foot steps. I'm fairly certain my genius runs out when it comes to understanding why we don't show the love for ourselves that we deserve. I simply don't get it at this point in my life. But here's what I do get: 

• I get that it's possible for us to improve and grow, and I get that it's important for us all to remember that growth and change can be beautiful valuable things. 
• I get that we are surrounding ourselves with criticism and negativity that stifles our knowledge of how awesome we already are. 
• I get that as a society we aren't even talking about how our weaknesses can be strengths. 
• I get that these are things our awesome society can improve upon. These are things I would say are our societies weaknesses as well as strengths.
  

If you are a sheep, you go ahead and really rock that sheep thing. Put on them hooves and sheep away! I'm completely serious despite my way of expressing myself. Sheep can be super useful. I wouldn't doubt it if at least once in human history someone has said, "Wow, I'm really thankful I had these sheep here. I wouldn't have been able to replenish the clothes I lost in that massive clothes fire otherwise! And wasn't it cool when the herd of sheep carried me out of the fire on their woolly little backs? Super awesome! Thanks sheep! I owe you my life!" ( or some other variation of that sentiment).

Now I struggle occasionally. I have moments where I have to put things on perspective to realize that I really like myself and it doesn't matter if someone I've met knows how cool I am. I have to remind myself that my awesome undiscovered crazy looking yellow spirit animal can be both my biggest strength as well as biggest weakness depending on how I choose to use it, and how I choose to learn from when I misuse it. But most of all I have to remind myself that I'm good enough as the crazy looking yellow undiscovered animal that I am.

Whether I'm struggling with my intelligence layer, or my physical appearance layer, or my talent layer, I approach it all the same way. I ATTACK my thoughts while my thoughts are attacking me. If I think something negative about my appearance, I counter it with a positive thought about my appearance. Then, I write it down and I put it up where I can see it every day, It serves to remind me that I've got awesome qualities. Awesome qualities that make me feel really good about myself no matter how down I am feeling.

I work hard, and I've overcome some impressive hurdles of my own. I manage to follow the code I've made for myself and I'm proud of who I am and what I do. One day I won't even have to work at it, I'll be so good at loving who I am that it won't take effort or reminders. I won't have to put up post-its that say "Nice thights!" or "Dat brain doe!" on my walls. It will be automatic, and it will be as beautiful as I am inside and out. That's my goal.

A tribute to my spirit animal.

George R. R. Martin Broke My Tear Ducts

As it turns out, when you live with people you aren't a huge fan of you spend a lot of time getting invested in television characters you are a huge fan of. I've gotten to know this part of dorm life very well since last semester. I've watched a ridiculous amount of full TV series these past eight or so months, so many it would be too embarrassing to list them out. I know this for a fact because I just spent the last five minutes attempting that very list before stopping out of shame. I mean, I'm already writing a blog where I complain about room mates and dorm life and show pretty pictures I draw all alone, why add an embarrassing list of all the shows I watch to prove just how little time I spend outside my room? And it's a shame really, because I'm very attractive and outside looks good on me. 

My latest obsession is Game of Thrones, which if anyone reading knows this show they know its an awful idea to get attached to characters. George R. R. Martin writes every word as if it's a Shakespearean tragedy... everyone dies! Except the emotional turmoil I feel is way worse because I actually enjoy and understand Game of Thrones. The last time I felt like this was while watching Grey's Anatomy, which I just recently caught up with and decided to give a breather after binge watching it over half of Spring break. And yes Spring break happened very recently, so I've been feeling this way for quite some time. It's sad and pathetic and it's my life right now. THERE I SAID IT!

On a positive note when George isn't breaking my tear ducts he is helping me reinvest my interest and curiosity in the magical world; a world I haven't been so engrossed in since the last Harry Potter book and movies. True there's the occasional magical aspect to some of my other favorite shows such as Angel and Being Human that might perk up my little fleshy ears, but nothing recently that's gotten me as involved as Game of Thrones. And so, I draw and I draw and I cry and I cry and eventually something cool and magical comes out and I add it to my ever growing list of characters and stories floating around in my noggin. And now, I come to the whole narcissistic point of this blog entry. The magical little drawing that came out that I thought the internet just needed to experience. Enjoy!

My Monsters and the Room Mate Blues

Ever since I moved out of the house and into the dorms last Fall I've found a new obsession with monsters. This makes sense because I've been living with four of them since August last year. And like most of my obsessions, this one has found its expression through my art. I draw them in class, in bed, on benches during my room mate escaping walks around campus; I draw them everywhere. Many of them are cute and friendly looking while the others end up taking on the characteristics of my room mates. This little blue one here reminds me of the worst of them. She's short, always making noise, and despite her looks is the most popular among our pod. Some might say she makes me ROARING mad! Get it? Roar... like a monster.... Anyway, thankfully I don't actually have to share a room with any of my real life monsters. Hopefully next years room mates will inspire something with a more positive connotation to it. But hey, at least I got some good art out of this year!